I Listen to the Music

I Listen to the Music
By Michelle McKague

I listen the music,
That we used to listen to.
I read the books,
That once we read together.

I hear the lyrics of favourite songs,
And think of you.
I look at old photographs,
And my heart aches a little more.

There are echos of you all around me,
So many little things.
I stop and think of you all the time,
Everywhere I go I am remind of you.

Some times the pain seems never-ending,
And I wonder how to go on.
It feels like you took a part of me with you,
When you went away.

I can’t believe you’re in a better place,
Or that everything happens for a reason.
There’s no making sense of tragedy,
Of the loss I endured.

You were too young to go,
And I wasn’t ready yet to face life on my own.
I need you still,
I need you to guide me.

I always knew I’d lose you someday,
But I thought it would be years from now.
I had counted on years we’d never get,
Moments that we’ll never share.

I think of those moments,
When I listen to our special song.
With each lyric,
I think of the dance that’ll never be.

I listen to your favourite bands,
And it’s all so fresh in my mind.
The pain, the loss, the memories,
It’s all right there again.

You are gone,
But memories never die.
What you were lives on,
In all your favourite things.

So I turn the music up a little louder,
And remember.
It hurts a bit,
But it would hurt more to forget.

Music of His Heart

Lots of things make me think about my dad, it's just how it is. I think about him a hundred times a day, at least. But the biggest trigger is music.

So many songs have so many different memories attached. I hear them and I flash back to some moment, some conversation, some special occasion. Music brings it all back, because music was such a huge part of him. He loved it, couldn't bear the silence anymore than i can, and he just got so much pleasure, found some part of himself in it.

Carry on My Wayward Son by Kansas and Behind Blue Eyes by The Who, had special significance to him because he saw himself in the lyrics. Ruby Tuesday was his song for me. Love Her Madly was and his my mother's song.

He loved other songs and so many have special meaning. He used to go around singing It's Only Rock and Roll and when I was young, he'd constantly sing the lyrics of You Can't Always Get What You Want to me as some sort of parenting lesson.

He woudl constantly challenge me to idenitfy the song whenever we listend to the radio. He bought me classic rock CDs, as well as the CDs I wanted, to broaden my horizons. He was at his happiest, sitting in our living room or his basement, just listening to music and chilling with his friends.

So, it seems natural that it musics that makes me think of him the most. Music that makes me miss even more. And music that I turn to in the moments when the grief and the pain threaten to overwhelm me.

It's strange, as much pain as it causes me to hear the music that I once shared with my father, it also comforts me. When I'm at my lowest ebb and I listen to those familiar songs, it almost feels like he's there--or at least I can sense him better than I can other times.

Music was a big part of our bond. He gave me my life for it, everything I know, I learnt at my father's knee. SO many memories, so many special moments that music brings back and sometimes, I just need that connection. It's not the same, it could never be the same, but it's something.

So, I'll turn on the old familiar songs and take comfort in the memories of a time when I shared them with my father and the knowledge that somwhere he's hearing the same songs I am and sharing them with me once more, I just can't see him.

In Remembrance

In Remembrance
By Anonymous

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamonds glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle morning rain.
And when you wake in the morning's hush,
I am the sweet uplifting rush,
Of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

- This poem is also occasionally titled "I Am Not There".